Home / Series / Man Alive / Aired Order / Season 1970 / Episode 24

Borstal (1): The Sentence

In this programme, the first of two, James Astor and a Man Alive film team look at two borstals, one closed, the other open. Between the ages of 15 and 21 young offenders can be sentenced by courts to spend anything between six months and two years in a borstal. No longer described as punishment - instead always labelled training - it is nevertheless a painful experience for an increasing number of young people. Today there are nearly six thousand young men and women in borstals. More than half of them will be in trouble again after their release - three-quarters of them reconvicted within three years. This high failure rate is seen by critics to show up a system out of step with the needs of inmates and which reflects badly on new ideas in the prison service. It may be called 'training.' It's still a sentence-in which a young offender is taken away from the community; even locked up in a cell.

English
  • Originally Aired July 8, 1970
  • Network BBC Two
  • Created June 5, 2022 by
    AddingStuffIsFun
  • Modified June 5, 2022 by
    AddingStuffIsFun